This chapter details the rise of anti-Americanism in France, in particular French socialist minister of culture Jack Lang's attack against American popular culture. Lang began by refusing to attend ...
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This chapter details the rise of anti-Americanism in France, in particular French socialist minister of culture Jack Lang's attack against American popular culture. Lang began by refusing to attend the American film festival at Deauville in September 1981; several months later he gave a notorious address denouncing American cultural imperialism at a UNESCO conference in Mexico City; and then he tried to organize a global “crusade” to combat cultural imports from the United States. Lang was a flamboyant young politician whose movie-star good looks, iconic pink jacket, dramatic initiatives, and hyperactive ways won him both admiration and ridicule. He presided over the Ministry of Culture from 1981 to 1986 and again from 1988 to 1993.Less

Anti-Americanism in Retreat: Jack Lang, Cultural Imperialism, and the Anti-Anti-Americans

Richard F. Kuisel

Published in print: 2011-11-27

This chapter details the rise of anti-Americanism in France, in particular French socialist minister of culture Jack Lang's attack against American popular culture. Lang began by refusing to attend the American film festival at Deauville in September 1981; several months later he gave a notorious address denouncing American cultural imperialism at a UNESCO conference in Mexico City; and then he tried to organize a global “crusade” to combat cultural imports from the United States. Lang was a flamboyant young politician whose movie-star good looks, iconic pink jacket, dramatic initiatives, and hyperactive ways won him both admiration and ridicule. He presided over the Ministry of Culture from 1981 to 1986 and again from 1988 to 1993.

This chapter examines the dynamic of American imperialism in the Philippines since 1898 and the role played by the United States in determining the values, practices, and institutions that constitute ...
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This chapter examines the dynamic of American imperialism in the Philippines since 1898 and the role played by the United States in determining the values, practices, and institutions that constitute democracy in the islands today. It first explains why the United States decided to sponsor democracy in the Philippines after defeating Spain in the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898. It then considers the political and socioeconomic dimensions of the United States' democratization of the Philippines, focusing on its introduction of the trappings of modern government such as political parties, elections, and the rise of a Filipino landed class whose wealth was based on the production of export commodities. It also discusses the negative effects of a landowning oligarchy on Philippine democracy and concludes with an assessment of the reasons why General Douglas MacArthur did not mandate land reform for the Philippines.Less

Democracy in the Philippines

Tony Smith

Published in print: 2012-03-12

This chapter examines the dynamic of American imperialism in the Philippines since 1898 and the role played by the United States in determining the values, practices, and institutions that constitute democracy in the islands today. It first explains why the United States decided to sponsor democracy in the Philippines after defeating Spain in the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898. It then considers the political and socioeconomic dimensions of the United States' democratization of the Philippines, focusing on its introduction of the trappings of modern government such as political parties, elections, and the rise of a Filipino landed class whose wealth was based on the production of export commodities. It also discusses the negative effects of a landowning oligarchy on Philippine democracy and concludes with an assessment of the reasons why General Douglas MacArthur did not mandate land reform for the Philippines.

The bubonic plague reached Hawaii for the first time in 1899, just as the archipelago was being annexed by the US. To deal with the epidemic, governmental authorities granted absolute emergency ...
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The bubonic plague reached Hawaii for the first time in 1899, just as the archipelago was being annexed by the US. To deal with the epidemic, governmental authorities granted absolute emergency powers to the Honolulu Board of Health. Committed to the new science of bacteriology, the Board physicians eventually decided to burn buildings where victims had died, hoping thereby to destroy any remaining plague bacilli. On January 20, 1900, one of those controlled burns burgeoned into a larger inferno that obliterated the Chinatown section of the city. In a few hours, over 5,000 people lost everything they had and were marched to detention camps where they were held under armed guard. Next to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, this remains the worst civic disaster in Hawaiian history, and probably the worst civic disaster ever to result from an American public health initiative. In the larger context of medical history, ethnic studies, and American imperialism, this book tells the story of how that catastrophe came about and how the principal racial and ethnic groups in Honolulu — Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiians, and whites — responded to the crisis.Less

Plague and Fire : Battling Black Death and the 1900 Burning of Honolulu's Chinatown

James C. Mohr

Published in print: 2004-12-09

The bubonic plague reached Hawaii for the first time in 1899, just as the archipelago was being annexed by the US. To deal with the epidemic, governmental authorities granted absolute emergency powers to the Honolulu Board of Health. Committed to the new science of bacteriology, the Board physicians eventually decided to burn buildings where victims had died, hoping thereby to destroy any remaining plague bacilli. On January 20, 1900, one of those controlled burns burgeoned into a larger inferno that obliterated the Chinatown section of the city. In a few hours, over 5,000 people lost everything they had and were marched to detention camps where they were held under armed guard. Next to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, this remains the worst civic disaster in Hawaiian history, and probably the worst civic disaster ever to result from an American public health initiative. In the larger context of medical history, ethnic studies, and American imperialism, this book tells the story of how that catastrophe came about and how the principal racial and ethnic groups in Honolulu — Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiians, and whites — responded to the crisis.

This chapter follows The World Tomorrow editor Kirby Page from his early career as an aspiring YMCA missionary world traveler with Sherwood Eddy to his vocation as an independent foreign policy ...
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This chapter follows The World Tomorrow editor Kirby Page from his early career as an aspiring YMCA missionary world traveler with Sherwood Eddy to his vocation as an independent foreign policy publicist in the mid-1920s. It explores how Page's interests expanded from mere personal pacifism in 1917 to encompass a wider concern with American imperialism, immigration, and racial politics by the mid-1920s, a matrix of concerns he took to his editorial role at the journal. Page sought to correlate recent research into the historical Jesus with the problems of nationalism and imperialism in the American twentieth century, a project in which he was not alone, but of which he was arguably the major proponent of his time.Less

Anti-imperialism for Jesus

Michael G. Thompson

Published in print: 2015-11-06

This chapter follows The World Tomorrow editor Kirby Page from his early career as an aspiring YMCA missionary world traveler with Sherwood Eddy to his vocation as an independent foreign policy publicist in the mid-1920s. It explores how Page's interests expanded from mere personal pacifism in 1917 to encompass a wider concern with American imperialism, immigration, and racial politics by the mid-1920s, a matrix of concerns he took to his editorial role at the journal. Page sought to correlate recent research into the historical Jesus with the problems of nationalism and imperialism in the American twentieth century, a project in which he was not alone, but of which he was arguably the major proponent of his time.

In 1899 an American could open a newspaper and find outrageous images, such as an American soldier being injected with leprosy by Filipino insurgents. These kinds of hyperbolic accounts, this book ...
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In 1899 an American could open a newspaper and find outrageous images, such as an American soldier being injected with leprosy by Filipino insurgents. These kinds of hyperbolic accounts, this book argues, were just one element of the visual and material culture that played an integral role in debates about empire in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America. The book explores the ways visual imagery and design shaped the political and cultural landscape. Drawing on a myriad of sources—including photographs, tattoos, the decorative arts, the popular press, maps, parades, and material from world's fairs and urban planners—it offers a distinctive perspective on American imperialism. Exploring the period leading up to the Spanish–American War, as well as beyond it, the book argues that the way Americans visualized the Orient greatly influenced the fantasies of colonial domestication that would play out in the Philippines. Throughout, it examines visual culture's integral role in the machinery that runs the colonial engine.Less

Visualizing American Empire : Orientalism and Imperialism in the Philippines

David Brody

Published in print: 2010-09-01

In 1899 an American could open a newspaper and find outrageous images, such as an American soldier being injected with leprosy by Filipino insurgents. These kinds of hyperbolic accounts, this book argues, were just one element of the visual and material culture that played an integral role in debates about empire in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America. The book explores the ways visual imagery and design shaped the political and cultural landscape. Drawing on a myriad of sources—including photographs, tattoos, the decorative arts, the popular press, maps, parades, and material from world's fairs and urban planners—it offers a distinctive perspective on American imperialism. Exploring the period leading up to the Spanish–American War, as well as beyond it, the book argues that the way Americans visualized the Orient greatly influenced the fantasies of colonial domestication that would play out in the Philippines. Throughout, it examines visual culture's integral role in the machinery that runs the colonial engine.

This chapter focuses on the fourth “echo” of American constitutionalism: the Spanish-American War in 1898 which paved the way for the rise of the United States as an imperial power. After winning the ...
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This chapter focuses on the fourth “echo” of American constitutionalism: the Spanish-American War in 1898 which paved the way for the rise of the United States as an imperial power. After winning the Spanish-American War, the United States became a truly global power during the period between 1776 and 1900, acquiring the Philippines, Puerto Rico, the Hawaiian Islands, and the Samoan archipelage. These acquisitions enabled the U.S. to establish a major presence in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. The chapter examines the reasons why the United States became involved in the wave of imperialism. It also looks at the constitutional crisis that erupted between imperialists and anti-imperialists over the question of whether the U.S. Constitution followed the American flag wherever it flew overseas. It then considers the constitutional aspects of the United States's annexation of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Northern Mariana Islands, along with the incorporation of Alaska and Hawaii as states in the Union. Finally, it assesses American imperialism in protectorates such as Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic.Less

Fourth Echo : American Empire

George Athan Billias

Published in print: 2009-08-01

This chapter focuses on the fourth “echo” of American constitutionalism: the Spanish-American War in 1898 which paved the way for the rise of the United States as an imperial power. After winning the Spanish-American War, the United States became a truly global power during the period between 1776 and 1900, acquiring the Philippines, Puerto Rico, the Hawaiian Islands, and the Samoan archipelage. These acquisitions enabled the U.S. to establish a major presence in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. The chapter examines the reasons why the United States became involved in the wave of imperialism. It also looks at the constitutional crisis that erupted between imperialists and anti-imperialists over the question of whether the U.S. Constitution followed the American flag wherever it flew overseas. It then considers the constitutional aspects of the United States's annexation of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and the Northern Mariana Islands, along with the incorporation of Alaska and Hawaii as states in the Union. Finally, it assesses American imperialism in protectorates such as Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic.

The early American republic remained embedded in the structures of the British Empire long after the achievement of its political independence in 1783. The nationalism of “postcolonial America,” as ...
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The early American republic remained embedded in the structures of the British Empire long after the achievement of its political independence in 1783. The nationalism of “postcolonial America,” as recent scholarship has called it, owed much to the on-going struggle to consolidate independence from an increasingly powerful and global British Empire. The best means of loosening Britain’s economic grip over the new republic triggered great social and political conflict. Furthermore, Britain intensified the sectional conflict over slavery that would lead to civil war, both by increasing Southern insecurity through its anti-slavery position and by offering a market and potential alternative political alliance to the cotton producing states of the Deep South. Yet, paradoxically, Britain’s persistent influence and its global pre-eminence played an important role in the consolidation and expansion of the United States.Less

Epilogue : The United States in the British Empire *

Jay Sexton

Published in print: 2013-11-21

The early American republic remained embedded in the structures of the British Empire long after the achievement of its political independence in 1783. The nationalism of “postcolonial America,” as recent scholarship has called it, owed much to the on-going struggle to consolidate independence from an increasingly powerful and global British Empire. The best means of loosening Britain’s economic grip over the new republic triggered great social and political conflict. Furthermore, Britain intensified the sectional conflict over slavery that would lead to civil war, both by increasing Southern insecurity through its anti-slavery position and by offering a market and potential alternative political alliance to the cotton producing states of the Deep South. Yet, paradoxically, Britain’s persistent influence and its global pre-eminence played an important role in the consolidation and expansion of the United States.

This chapter initially looks at the film Hiroshima, Mon Amour with respect to the dialectic of forgetting and remembering. Applying the aforementioned dialectic, it analyzes the partially remembered, ...
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This chapter initially looks at the film Hiroshima, Mon Amour with respect to the dialectic of forgetting and remembering. Applying the aforementioned dialectic, it analyzes the partially remembered, partially forgotten history of how in Japan, World War II gave rise to the Cold War. A number of Japanese American cultural texts, such as Steven Okazaki’s documentary Survivors, David Mura’s memoir Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei, and Ruth L. Ozeki’s novel My Year of Meats, present a critical representation of the history of America’s imperial and gendered racial engagement with Japan. The chapter also shows how the American gendered racial rehabilitation aimed to produce an anticommunist liberal Japan on one hand, and an economically integrated Japanese nation-state on the other.Less

Asian America’s Japan : The Perils of Gendered Racial Rehabilitation

Jodi Kim

Published in print: 2010-04-16

This chapter initially looks at the film Hiroshima, Mon Amour with respect to the dialectic of forgetting and remembering. Applying the aforementioned dialectic, it analyzes the partially remembered, partially forgotten history of how in Japan, World War II gave rise to the Cold War. A number of Japanese American cultural texts, such as Steven Okazaki’s documentary Survivors, David Mura’s memoir Turning Japanese: Memoirs of a Sansei, and Ruth L. Ozeki’s novel My Year of Meats, present a critical representation of the history of America’s imperial and gendered racial engagement with Japan. The chapter also shows how the American gendered racial rehabilitation aimed to produce an anticommunist liberal Japan on one hand, and an economically integrated Japanese nation-state on the other.

This book examines Asian American cultural production and its challenge to the dominant understanding of American imperialism, Cold War dynamics, and race and gender formation. The book demonstrates ...
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This book examines Asian American cultural production and its challenge to the dominant understanding of American imperialism, Cold War dynamics, and race and gender formation. The book demonstrates the degree to which Asian American literature and film critique the record of U.S. imperial violence in Asia and provides a glimpse into the imperial and gendered racial logic of the Cold War. It unfolds this particularly entangled and enduring episode in the history of U.S. global hegemony—one that, contrary to leading interpretations of the Cold War as a simple bipolar rivalry, was significantly triangulated in Asia. The Asian American works analyzed here constitute a crucial body of what the book reveals as transnational ‘Cold War compositions,’ which are at once a geopolitical structuring, an ideological writing, and a cultural imagining. Arguing that these works reframe the U.S. Cold War as a project of gendered racial formation and imperialism as well as a production of knowledge, this book offers an interdisciplinary investigation into the transnational dimensions of Asian America and its critical relationship to Cold War history.Less

Ends of Empire : Asian American Critique and the Cold War

Jodi Kim

Published in print: 2010-04-16

This book examines Asian American cultural production and its challenge to the dominant understanding of American imperialism, Cold War dynamics, and race and gender formation. The book demonstrates the degree to which Asian American literature and film critique the record of U.S. imperial violence in Asia and provides a glimpse into the imperial and gendered racial logic of the Cold War. It unfolds this particularly entangled and enduring episode in the history of U.S. global hegemony—one that, contrary to leading interpretations of the Cold War as a simple bipolar rivalry, was significantly triangulated in Asia. The Asian American works analyzed here constitute a crucial body of what the book reveals as transnational ‘Cold War compositions,’ which are at once a geopolitical structuring, an ideological writing, and a cultural imagining. Arguing that these works reframe the U.S. Cold War as a project of gendered racial formation and imperialism as well as a production of knowledge, this book offers an interdisciplinary investigation into the transnational dimensions of Asian America and its critical relationship to Cold War history.

This chapter presents a theoretical framework with which to read The World Tomorrow—one that fuses an old category, “foreign policy public,” and a new term, “counterpublic.” With Kirby Page as ...
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This chapter presents a theoretical framework with which to read The World Tomorrow—one that fuses an old category, “foreign policy public,” and a new term, “counterpublic.” With Kirby Page as editor, the journal presented a distinctive mix of muckraking rage and middlebrow didacticism as it sought to educate readers about the hidden realities of American imperialism in Latin America and American militarism everywhere, from colleges to Cosmopolitan magazine. In the 1930s, as The World Tomorrow became interested in disrupting wider public discourse, it amassed American clergy opinion in a series of highly publicized surveys. The oppositional nature of the journal was at its peak when U.S. Army chief Douglas MacArthur wrote an open letter condemning the nearly treasonous internationalism of the journal.Less

The World Tomorrow as a Foreign Policy Counterpublic

Michael G. Thompson

Published in print: 2015-11-06

This chapter presents a theoretical framework with which to read The World Tomorrow—one that fuses an old category, “foreign policy public,” and a new term, “counterpublic.” With Kirby Page as editor, the journal presented a distinctive mix of muckraking rage and middlebrow didacticism as it sought to educate readers about the hidden realities of American imperialism in Latin America and American militarism everywhere, from colleges to Cosmopolitan magazine. In the 1930s, as The World Tomorrow became interested in disrupting wider public discourse, it amassed American clergy opinion in a series of highly publicized surveys. The oppositional nature of the journal was at its peak when U.S. Army chief Douglas MacArthur wrote an open letter condemning the nearly treasonous internationalism of the journal.

This introductory chapter begins with a brief description of President William McKinley's dilemma about what to do with the newly acquired Philippines, and then sets out the book's purpose, which is ...
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This introductory chapter begins with a brief description of President William McKinley's dilemma about what to do with the newly acquired Philippines, and then sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore how deploying the visual to signify empire helped further American imperialism in Asia. Through a close reading of a number of visual scapes—including the body, the decorative arts, the mass media, maps, the public spectacle of a parade, and architecture—the book argues that different visual mediums furthered empire while concomitantly fostering a space where debates about empire could take place. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less

Introduction

Published in print: 2010-09-01

This introductory chapter begins with a brief description of President William McKinley's dilemma about what to do with the newly acquired Philippines, and then sets out the book's purpose, which is to explore how deploying the visual to signify empire helped further American imperialism in Asia. Through a close reading of a number of visual scapes—including the body, the decorative arts, the mass media, maps, the public spectacle of a parade, and architecture—the book argues that different visual mediums furthered empire while concomitantly fostering a space where debates about empire could take place. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

Without trial and without due process, the United States government locked up nearly all of those citizens and longtime residents who were of Japanese descent during World War II. Ten concentration ...
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Without trial and without due process, the United States government locked up nearly all of those citizens and longtime residents who were of Japanese descent during World War II. Ten concentration camps were set up across the country to confine over 120,000 inmates. Almost 20,000 of them were shipped to the only two camps in the segregated South—Jerome and Rohwer in Arkansas—locations that put them right in the heart of a much older, long-festering system of racist oppression. The first history of these Arkansas camps, this book is an eye-opening account of the inmates' experiences and a searing examination of American imperialism and racist hysteria. While the basic facts of Japanese-American incarceration are well known, the book's extensive research gives voice to those whose stories have been forgotten or ignored. It highlights the roles of women, first-generation immigrants, and those who forcefully resisted their incarceration by speaking out against dangerous working conditions and white racism. In addition to this overlooked history of dissent, the book also exposes the government's aggressive campaign to Americanize the inmates and even convert them to Christianity. After the war ended, this movement culminated in the dispersal of the prisoners across the nation in a calculated effort to break up ethnic enclaves. The re-creation of life in the camps is powerful, provocative, and disturbing. This book rewrites a notorious chapter in American history—a shameful story that nonetheless speaks to the strength of human resilience in the face of even the most grievous injustices.Less

Concentration Camps on the Home Front : Japanese Americans in the House of Jim Crow

John Howard

Published in print: 2008-10-15

Without trial and without due process, the United States government locked up nearly all of those citizens and longtime residents who were of Japanese descent during World War II. Ten concentration camps were set up across the country to confine over 120,000 inmates. Almost 20,000 of them were shipped to the only two camps in the segregated South—Jerome and Rohwer in Arkansas—locations that put them right in the heart of a much older, long-festering system of racist oppression. The first history of these Arkansas camps, this book is an eye-opening account of the inmates' experiences and a searing examination of American imperialism and racist hysteria. While the basic facts of Japanese-American incarceration are well known, the book's extensive research gives voice to those whose stories have been forgotten or ignored. It highlights the roles of women, first-generation immigrants, and those who forcefully resisted their incarceration by speaking out against dangerous working conditions and white racism. In addition to this overlooked history of dissent, the book also exposes the government's aggressive campaign to Americanize the inmates and even convert them to Christianity. After the war ended, this movement culminated in the dispersal of the prisoners across the nation in a calculated effort to break up ethnic enclaves. The re-creation of life in the camps is powerful, provocative, and disturbing. This book rewrites a notorious chapter in American history—a shameful story that nonetheless speaks to the strength of human resilience in the face of even the most grievous injustices.

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. The book focuses on the debates over the Philippine-American War and the annexation of the Philippines. Drawing on the ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. The book focuses on the debates over the Philippine-American War and the annexation of the Philippines. Drawing on the thoughts of Mark Twain, the book unpacks the sense of national identity that Twain shared with his contemporaries, their deep-seated assumptions about what it meant to be an American citizen, and their anxieties about the role that the United States should play on the world stage. In the process, it shows how a narrative of American identity, formulated over the course of the nineteenth century to impose unity on an ever-increasing multiplicity, was enlisted to support arguments over the annexation of the Philippines. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less

A Christian Nation

Susan K. Harris

Published in print: 2011-07-28

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. The book focuses on the debates over the Philippine-American War and the annexation of the Philippines. Drawing on the thoughts of Mark Twain, the book unpacks the sense of national identity that Twain shared with his contemporaries, their deep-seated assumptions about what it meant to be an American citizen, and their anxieties about the role that the United States should play on the world stage. In the process, it shows how a narrative of American identity, formulated over the course of the nineteenth century to impose unity on an ever-increasing multiplicity, was enlisted to support arguments over the annexation of the Philippines. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

This chapter, which gives an overview of the history of Cable and Wireless Limited, and the company’s effect on the industry, begins with the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference in 1928 to engage ...
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This chapter, which gives an overview of the history of Cable and Wireless Limited, and the company’s effect on the industry, begins with the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference in 1928 to engage a solution to the communications crisis that threatened the British Empire. This conference resulted in the reorganization of imperial communications, with nearly all involved companies merging into a single firm that would be Cable and Wireless Limited. The chapter provides the extensive background that preceded the merger, and how the creation of Cable and Wireless shows the challenges for Britain in maintaining balance between national security, the empire, and business during a time of fast-developing technology. The firm brought the industry away from globalization and created tension in Anglo-American relations. This reaction brings to light a paradox in the Cable and Wireless project: It was a response to growing fear and anxiety over American economic imperialism, but failed to unite the empire in the long run.Less

The Origins of Cable and Wireless Limited, 1918–1939: Capitalism, Imperialism, and Technical Change

Robert Boyce

Published in print: 2009-06-19

This chapter, which gives an overview of the history of Cable and Wireless Limited, and the company’s effect on the industry, begins with the Imperial Wireless and Cable Conference in 1928 to engage a solution to the communications crisis that threatened the British Empire. This conference resulted in the reorganization of imperial communications, with nearly all involved companies merging into a single firm that would be Cable and Wireless Limited. The chapter provides the extensive background that preceded the merger, and how the creation of Cable and Wireless shows the challenges for Britain in maintaining balance between national security, the empire, and business during a time of fast-developing technology. The firm brought the industry away from globalization and created tension in Anglo-American relations. This reaction brings to light a paradox in the Cable and Wireless project: It was a response to growing fear and anxiety over American economic imperialism, but failed to unite the empire in the long run.

In his chapter, J. B. Capino demonstrates how a variety of official and private documentary films were deployed to serve American imperialist interests while also documenting the Philipinos’ daily ...
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In his chapter, J. B. Capino demonstrates how a variety of official and private documentary films were deployed to serve American imperialist interests while also documenting the Philipinos’ daily life under direct US imperial rule (1899-1946), and over the post-independence period. This contribution highlights the specific filmic elements employed to both acknowledge and belie US imperialism in the Philippine, and demonstrates how specific documentary forms were influenced by the history of American imperialism in the region and, reciprocally, how non-fiction forms also forged significant aspects of imperialism.Less

Figures of Empire: American Documentaries in the Philippines

José B. Capino

Published in print: 2017-01-01

In his chapter, J. B. Capino demonstrates how a variety of official and private documentary films were deployed to serve American imperialist interests while also documenting the Philipinos’ daily life under direct US imperial rule (1899-1946), and over the post-independence period. This contribution highlights the specific filmic elements employed to both acknowledge and belie US imperialism in the Philippine, and demonstrates how specific documentary forms were influenced by the history of American imperialism in the region and, reciprocally, how non-fiction forms also forged significant aspects of imperialism.

This chapter focuses on the case of Hawaii. Like California, Australia, and South Africa, the case of Hawaii shows how technical and capitalist growth guided infrastructural development in the late ...
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This chapter focuses on the case of Hawaii. Like California, Australia, and South Africa, the case of Hawaii shows how technical and capitalist growth guided infrastructural development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Pulling Hawaii into a global economy via American imperialism meant growing sugarcane on an unprecedented scale; developing sophisticated irrigation, transportation, and marketing systems; hiring cheap, foreign labor; and dealing with the native Hawaiian question. Also as in California, Australia, and South Africa, Californians facilitated Hawaii's entry into a global economy, but certain incongruities arose. California businessman Claus Spreckels's sugar empire, for example, inextricably tied California's industrial growth to Hawaii's political and economic future and to the islands' destiny: the creation of a poor, urban class of Hawaiians.Less

Nothing but Commercial Feudalism : California's Hawaiian Empire

Jessica B. Teisch

Published in print: 2011-02-01

This chapter focuses on the case of Hawaii. Like California, Australia, and South Africa, the case of Hawaii shows how technical and capitalist growth guided infrastructural development in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Pulling Hawaii into a global economy via American imperialism meant growing sugarcane on an unprecedented scale; developing sophisticated irrigation, transportation, and marketing systems; hiring cheap, foreign labor; and dealing with the native Hawaiian question. Also as in California, Australia, and South Africa, Californians facilitated Hawaii's entry into a global economy, but certain incongruities arose. California businessman Claus Spreckels's sugar empire, for example, inextricably tied California's industrial growth to Hawaii's political and economic future and to the islands' destiny: the creation of a poor, urban class of Hawaiians.

The conclusion explains how, by the 1930s, California and Florida ranked first and second in terms of the states to which most white Americans relocated, marking an end to the need for boosters to ...
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The conclusion explains how, by the 1930s, California and Florida ranked first and second in terms of the states to which most white Americans relocated, marking an end to the need for boosters to construct any more broad, educative descriptions of the two states and their environments as “semi-tropical”. By the 1930s, the promotional imagery of semi-tropical California and Florida had effectively done its work, with the falling away of the terminology indicating a fundamental conquering of natural environments which had once intimidated whites. The conclusion also shows how the success of the semi-tropical visions of California and Florida impacted on the Soviet Union in the 1930s, where political leaders sought to market the Transcaucasus as sub-tropical lands akin to California and Florida. In addition, the semi-tropical imagery fed into writings on America's new tropical territories after 1898: Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Finally, the conclusion argues for how corporate boosters of the two states ultimately co-opted and even corrupted traditional republican ideology to fuel their own self-interested goals of development in California and Florida.Less

Conclusion: Beyond America's Tropic of Hopes

Henry Knight

Published in print: 2013-09-17

The conclusion explains how, by the 1930s, California and Florida ranked first and second in terms of the states to which most white Americans relocated, marking an end to the need for boosters to construct any more broad, educative descriptions of the two states and their environments as “semi-tropical”. By the 1930s, the promotional imagery of semi-tropical California and Florida had effectively done its work, with the falling away of the terminology indicating a fundamental conquering of natural environments which had once intimidated whites. The conclusion also shows how the success of the semi-tropical visions of California and Florida impacted on the Soviet Union in the 1930s, where political leaders sought to market the Transcaucasus as sub-tropical lands akin to California and Florida. In addition, the semi-tropical imagery fed into writings on America's new tropical territories after 1898: Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Finally, the conclusion argues for how corporate boosters of the two states ultimately co-opted and even corrupted traditional republican ideology to fuel their own self-interested goals of development in California and Florida.

This chapter traces modern conceptions of racial blackness from the beginnings of Euro-American imperialism in the Western Hemisphere through the seventeenth-century Atlantic slave trade and the ...
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This chapter traces modern conceptions of racial blackness from the beginnings of Euro-American imperialism in the Western Hemisphere through the seventeenth-century Atlantic slave trade and the mercantilist economy dependent on slavery up to the Federalist era (1780–1800) in early U.S. national politics. It traces a historical trajectory—approximately 1500 to 1800—that links the origin of the U.S. nation (and its Constitutional avoidance of the immorality of its slave system) to European imperialism and the mercantilist economy supported by the slave trade. In so doing the chapter establishes “the fundamental, ongoing event of Western modernity” and how it revises systems of world trade and the mechanics of state powers, and revises the materiality of the body and the relations of the body to the discursive mechanisms by which it is socially apprehended and managed in the modern exclusive paradigms of personhood.Less

The Conceptual Impossibility of Racial Blackness : History, the Commodity, and Diasporic Modernity

Lindon Barrett

Published in print: 2013-12-15

This chapter traces modern conceptions of racial blackness from the beginnings of Euro-American imperialism in the Western Hemisphere through the seventeenth-century Atlantic slave trade and the mercantilist economy dependent on slavery up to the Federalist era (1780–1800) in early U.S. national politics. It traces a historical trajectory—approximately 1500 to 1800—that links the origin of the U.S. nation (and its Constitutional avoidance of the immorality of its slave system) to European imperialism and the mercantilist economy supported by the slave trade. In so doing the chapter establishes “the fundamental, ongoing event of Western modernity” and how it revises systems of world trade and the mechanics of state powers, and revises the materiality of the body and the relations of the body to the discursive mechanisms by which it is socially apprehended and managed in the modern exclusive paradigms of personhood.

Without design or intent, according to Reinhold Niebuhr in 1930, the United States had become an “awkward imperialist,” forced to conquer foreign markets to prevent the glut of domestic ones. This ...
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Without design or intent, according to Reinhold Niebuhr in 1930, the United States had become an “awkward imperialist,” forced to conquer foreign markets to prevent the glut of domestic ones. This chapter explores the ways in which industrialists went abroad to sell and manufacture their goods, and how they were the important precursors for those who would head overseas after the Second World War. However, unlike outdated histories of American isolationism or overly-optimistic tales of an irresistible advance of the American commercial empire, this chapter argues that there was nothing inevitable about the gains. By looking behind the scenes thanks to lawfirm archives, noting the difficulties of setting up business abroad, we can see how the “natives” fought back, with tough tariff negotiations and other resistance to American models. From Hollywood to Palmolive, American companies tested different strategies of governance from afar in the first half of the century.Less

Americans at Work : Of Grocers, Fashion Writers,Dentists, and Lawyers

Nancy L. Green

Published in print: 2014-07-07

Without design or intent, according to Reinhold Niebuhr in 1930, the United States had become an “awkward imperialist,” forced to conquer foreign markets to prevent the glut of domestic ones. This chapter explores the ways in which industrialists went abroad to sell and manufacture their goods, and how they were the important precursors for those who would head overseas after the Second World War. However, unlike outdated histories of American isolationism or overly-optimistic tales of an irresistible advance of the American commercial empire, this chapter argues that there was nothing inevitable about the gains. By looking behind the scenes thanks to lawfirm archives, noting the difficulties of setting up business abroad, we can see how the “natives” fought back, with tough tariff negotiations and other resistance to American models. From Hollywood to Palmolive, American companies tested different strategies of governance from afar in the first half of the century.

This chapter evaluates the American iconoclastic campaign and visual censorship in Germany. In occupied Germany, visual censorship became a central part of psychological warfare. Iconoclasm was ...
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This chapter evaluates the American iconoclastic campaign and visual censorship in Germany. In occupied Germany, visual censorship became a central part of psychological warfare. Iconoclasm was accompanied by a policy of selective preservation. The Ulenspiegel: Literatur, Kunst, und Satire was a showcase of postwar German modern art. It reproduced thousands of German and foreign works of art and reintroduced the German public to “degenerate” artists who had been banned by the Nazis. It also utilized satire to expose the multiple contradictions facing postwar Germany. In addition, it took sides in the emerging Cold War. The Cold War did encroach on the possibility of independent political discourse. Joseph Stalin spoke of the menace of a new fascism—American imperialism—and President Harry Truman denounced the Soviet Union as a totalitarian state that continued the antidemocratic offensive of Nazism.Less

Iconoclasm and Censorship

Published in print: 2009-05-01

This chapter evaluates the American iconoclastic campaign and visual censorship in Germany. In occupied Germany, visual censorship became a central part of psychological warfare. Iconoclasm was accompanied by a policy of selective preservation. The Ulenspiegel: Literatur, Kunst, und Satire was a showcase of postwar German modern art. It reproduced thousands of German and foreign works of art and reintroduced the German public to “degenerate” artists who had been banned by the Nazis. It also utilized satire to expose the multiple contradictions facing postwar Germany. In addition, it took sides in the emerging Cold War. The Cold War did encroach on the possibility of independent political discourse. Joseph Stalin spoke of the menace of a new fascism—American imperialism—and President Harry Truman denounced the Soviet Union as a totalitarian state that continued the antidemocratic offensive of Nazism.